Hendersonville-based Jetlag Learning was awarded the "Most Innovative Ed Tech Product" at the recent Software and Information Industry Association annual conference, which focuses on education-related software and digital content.Using Jetlag's browser-based program, titled simCEO, elementary to college-age students can create their own online companies and manage stock portfolios. Despite the fact that Jetlag is only five years old, simCEO is now used by more than 600 teachers in 40 countries, according to company founder and CEO Derek Luebbe. He is a part-time Hendersonville resident and full-time principal at the American International School of Budapest. He's spent the last 18 years working in American International Schools around the world.SimCEO can be customized by a teacher to target specific age ranges and subjects, such as history, economics, math, etc. Teachers can create a “Classroom Stock Market” and add news items that might affect a company's growth strategy or stock price. Students have to react in real time, altering how their company might approach a new market or making any number of moves in an effort to, for example, stabilize a falling stock value.Students can buy and sell stock in their classmates' companies, further altering the online business simulation. "From a learning perspective, that's one of the great components: instant feedback. If you can get feedback, just like a video game gives you feedback, that's a major component of learning. (Students) don't need to wait for the teacher to grade their paper and hand it back," said company founder and CEO Derek Luebbe. "It's one of the few examples in education today where kids are creating and evaluating each other all the time. That's what we adults do all the time. That's a good thing. They're creating their own solutions, but they're learning from and evaluating each other. Those are the kinds of environments we need more of in education today." He added that teachers can use the simulation to teach a variety of subjects, or even time periods. "The teacher, for instance, says, ‘We're going to set up a business in Boston in 1770," Luebbe explained. "‘Here's your textbook, here's your website, what business would you set up?'" A more modern example would be if a teacher wanted to teach about alternative energy. Using simCEO, "kids can create a business that has a zero-carbon footprint," Luebbe said.The simulation "represents a new way for students to learn, preparing them for the future by putting them into an environment where there are no right or wrong answers – just like real life," he continued. "Students have to persuade each other that their ideas have value. Plus, it has the added value of teaching students entrepreneurship and financial literacy, which are badly needed but often-neglected skills in schools, due to time constraints."Luebbe created simCEO when he was a history and economics teacher in search of new ways to bring what he calls "the four Cs of 21st century skills" into the classroom: creation, collaboration, communication and critical thinking. "Those are the skills I want my kids to come out of school with," Luebbe said. His three daughters are in 10th, seventh and fourth grades at American International School of Budapest, where his wife, Laurie, teaches second grade.An annual simCEO subscription for 20 students costs $69, but Luebbe explained that he wants to share the program with Henderson County schools for free for a year."We want teachers to experience it without having to pay for it," he said. "It's a really different kind of learning. We're really trying to foster entrepreneurial thinking, both in the biz sense and in the mindset of what kids need to learn in the 21st Century," Luebbe added. Reach Tanker at 828-694-7871 or nancy.tanker@blueridgenow.com.